~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
alt.books.terry-brooks FAQ
Version 1.2
Originally by Mark Dunne, mdunne@iol.ie
Current maintainer Imran Ghory, imrang@btinternet.com
FAQ Last updated: 29th September 1998
Please reply if you have any suggestions
or comments on this FAQ.
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CONTENTS(followed by last update date)
1.0] About this FAQ
1.1] Recent updates
1.2] Acknowledgements
1.3] Copyrights
2.0] Who is Terry Brooks?
2.1] Terry Brooks himself.
2.2] Terry Brooks' Books
3.0] What other Brooks stuff is out there ?
3.1] Have any of his books been made in to films/movies.
3.2] Have any of his books been made in to computer games.
4.0] Other internet Terry Brooks resources.
4.1] IRC
4.2] Mailing Lists
4.3] ICQ
4.4] Web pages
5.0] Coping with spoilers.
6.0] Latest Brooks news.
6.1] What are his plans for the future ?
6.2] When will his books be released ?
---
1.0] About this FAQ
First of all, if you're a newcomer to alt.books.terry-brooks, welcome!
Secondly, this is the alt.books.terry-brooks FAQ, which it would be nice to read
:-)
A HTML version is available from my website, http://members.xoom.com/ImranG/
And also on FTP from,
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.books.terry-brooks/
1.1] Recent updates
29th September 1998: Some sections have been rewritten, not much change. This
FAQ is now also cross-posted to alt.answers and news.answers.
1.2] Acknowledgements
First and foremost to Terry Brooks(inevitably), and DelRey and also to,
Celia Malm
Mark Dunne
The Book Report (www.thebookreport.com)
And everyone who commented on the first draft FAQ(I would credit you but I've
lost the original thread) :(
1.3] Copyrights
The names and the content of the books are copyright to Terry Brooks.
This FAQ is copyrighted by me(ImranG@btinternet.com) and everyone else who
contributes to it, Non-commercial distribution is permitted(but it would be nice
if you asked me first). Commercial distribution is not permitted without express
permission.
---
2] Who is Terry Brooks?
If you have to ask this question, perhaps your in the wrong group :}
2.1] Terry Brooks himself.
Terry Brooks is the author of two series of bestselling fantasy novels, the
Shannara series and the Magic Kingdom of Landover series. He was born in
Sterling, Illinois in 1944, and spent the first 40 years of his life there.
Brooks received an undergraduate degree in English Literature from Hamilton
College in New York State, and a law degree from Washington & Lee University in
Virginia. He practiced law for many years, working during the day and writing at
night. He wrote his first four books on that schedule, leaving law to write full
time in 1986.
Suits us :-) The more he writes, the happier we get.
His first novel, the Sword of Shannara was published in 1977, and subsequently
appeared on the New York Times best-seller list - the first work of fiction to
do so.<I'm not sure about this, but that's what he said in an interview >
As to favour towards him on the internet among fantasy fans there seems to be a
split opinion as in the,
Recommended Fantasy Authors List,
http://www.sff.net/people/Amy.Sheldon/listcont.htm
Terry Brooks is sixth.
But in the,
THE INTERNET TOP 100 SF/FANTASY LIST
http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/
he's not even in the top 100 <gasp>
But as of May 1998, his books position are as follows,
649 Elfstones of Shannara
704 Talisman of Shannara
742 Druid of Shannara
751 the Scions of Shannara
825 Wishsong of Shannara
831 the Tangle Box
889 Elf queen of Shannara
915 Sword of Shannara
968 Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold
1010 Wizard at Large
1061 the Black Unicorn
1416 Witch 's Brew
2146 First King of Shannara
You can find details on how to vote on the list from the above mentioned
website.
2.2] Terry Brooks' Books
The books are, of course, wonderful (well, what did you expect from a newsgroup
which discusses them :-). Perhaps the more widely discussed on this newsgroup
are the Shannara books, which are as follows:
---Prequel---
First King of Shannara
---First Three---
Sword of Shannara
Elfstones of Shannara
Wishsong of Shannara
---Heritage of Shannara---
Scions of Shannara
Druid of Shannara
Elfqueen of Shannara
Talismans of Shannara
This list orders them in the order in which the events in them happen -
e.g., the events in First King of Shannara happen before the events in Sword of
Shannara. However, First King of Shannara is in fact the most recently written
of the novels. While they are best read in the order as above, First King is a
bit dubious. There are good reasons for reading it both before or after the
other books - it obviously is written to take advantage of the previously
published works, but it also is a good prequel(although this is arguable).
However, the books which are grouped together should be read in that order,
especially the Heritage series, as they form a single story. The second series
he wrote, the Magic Kingdom series is as follows:
Magic Kingdom For Sale..SOLD!
The Black Unicorn
Wizard at Large
The Tangle Box
Witches Brew
These to be read one after meals in the order above until the course is
finished. :-)
The third series he wrote, the Word and the Void series(unofficial name) the
name DelRey is using appears to be "Demon series", and it might be "Trollstown"
although this is unconfired,the series as is as follows:
Running with the Demon
A Knight of the Word
---
3] What other Brooks stuff is out there ?
3.1]Have any of his books been made in to films/movies.
Not yet although he is interested in doing so, when in an interview he was
asked,
"Any movies in the works based on any of your novels?"
The reply was,
"Lots of interest, no money."
3.2]Have any of his books been made in to computer games.
There was an Shannara game CD-ROM put out by Legend. The game is set in the time
period after Sword of Shannara and is an "interactive novel" and you get to play
Shea's son Jak. The game is still available from http://www.Legendent.com for
about $20 (US).
---
5] Other internet Terry Brooks resources.
Here is a comprehensive guide to TB internet resources on the web,
5.1] IRC
The following channels can be found on DalNet,
#South_Road_Inn (FFRP/OOC)
(It's page is http://personalwebs.myriad.net/getsc/irc/SRInn.htm )
#Anne's_House
(web page is at http://pw2.netcom.com/~permalm/shannara.html)
4.2] Mailing Lists
There is a mailing list about all things Terry Brooks.
You can find details on how to join at,
http://pw2.netcom.com/~permalm/shannara.html
Or alternatively you could email permalm(at)ix(dot)netcom(dot)com
and ask her to put you on it, stating if you would prefer to receive the
digested version or the regular version. For those who don't know the difference
between the two types, In digest you get all the messages for the day (if any)
in one long post. If you are a lurker that doesn't like to get too many pieces
of e-mail, I'd suggest the digest version. If you want to participate fairly
often, and/or don't mind a lot of e-mail on the occasions when the list gets
busy, choose regular.
4.3] ICQ
There is an ICQ Chat room for Terry Brooks, its UIN is 9601207.
4.4] Web pages
A list of all web pages is available in a separate list now, it currently has 77
sites in 9 languages. It is avaliable form my website at,
http://members.xoom.com/ImranG/
---
5] Spoilers
Spoilers are defined as follows: Any major piece of information regarding
events, characters or items beyond naming, vague references or indications,
should be regarded a s a spoiler. E.g., It's perfectly okay to say something
like "When Allanon was at the Hadeshorn in Shannara, was he wearing his cloak
inside out or not?" as it doesn't give anything about the story away. Also,
because it's pretty irrelevant, but you get what I'm saying :-) However,
something like "When Bremen turns Brona into a fluffy bunny rabbit, exterminates
the troll nation and makes Walker Boh become President of the USA, why does he
persist in using the Ildatch to hit Par Ohmsford?" should be marked as a
spoiler. Note that the events in this question do not happen in any of the
books...
To mark a post as containing a spoiler, write it as follows:
[<book>: SPOIL] <subject>
Where <book> is the book and <subject> the subject. No, really.
For the book name either use the important word from the title(such as Sword or
Demon)
Another system which is used is using CAPITALS for important words and
small letters of unimportant words, eg. Running with the Demon would
become RwtD and First King would become FKoS.
The post should have 25 lines of spoiler space, preferably with printed
characters, as some readers remove blank lines, eg.
.
.
.
.
---
6] Terry Brooks News
6.1]What are his plans for the future ?
Here are the new books he plans to write(in this order),
(third book in RwtD series, yet unnamed)
Shannara book about Walker (1 of 2)
Shannara book about Walker (2 of 2)
Also in an interview last year(1997) Terry Brooks stated,
"I have two more Shannara books planned, but they won't be out, or even written,
for a few years, and I have at least that many books planned to follow Running
with the Demon, with some recurring characters, most notably Nest Freemark and
John Ross."
He has also written a novelization of the first new Star Wars film.
6.2] When will his books be released ?
At this moment its unknown when any of his books will be released.
<Well actually a rough outline is known, I'll write it up once it get confirmed
by DelRey/RandomHouse/Terry Brooks>
But generally his books are released during August.
If you have anything to contribute to the FAQ please post it, or email me at
ImranG@btinternet.com
End of FAQ
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---
http://members.xoom.com/ImranG/
(Lands of Terry Brooks)

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